Taylor Berger

May 2019

What happens at Music Fest in Memphis feels like a frantic cash-grab to break even on the massive production costs of creating a miniature city at Tom Lee Park every May. New Orleans’ Jazz Fest and Austin’s South by Southwest do a better job of dispersing throughout the city cores, which boosts businesses while drawing tourists.

First, let me say I’m pretty much all for development, especially in the Memphis city core, but I think the massive Union Row project demonstrates an inequity in the development process that we need to examine. The beauty of this problem, however, is the solution would have a positive impact, helping create new small “infill” development across Memphis in neighborhoods that might otherwise be ignored.